Harriet
by Viburnum
Summary: Sequel to Emma. Harriet realizes she does not love Robert but Mr. Knightley and decides to plot against Emma to secure his heart. Jealousy is always a sin, a thorn in Eden.


**The Official Disclaimer:** I don't own Emma. Yes! The case of who owns Emma has been solved! – Jane Austen! Yeah! (ok everyone knew that – just kidding :))  
**Author's Note:** I got this idea while I was reading Emma and thought why not. Emma is a universal contributor to many possibilities and expanded it would be great I presumed. All I ask is everyone bears with the idea and **PLEASE **if anything seems out of order notify me.

"**Harriet" really is a sequel to Emma (well my sequel)**

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This Story Is Dedicated to my Family and Friends  
It Also serves as a Tribute to Miss Jane Austen  
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**Harriet **

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Volume One  
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Chapter I

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Harriet Smith, blue-eyed beauty and pleasant, was the mistress of the Abbey Mill Farm through the connections of her husband, Mr. Robert Martin. At twenty-one years of age Harriet had had so much to cogitate and plan that one may say she was the body of organization. Thus she was always busy and preoccupied with her family of sister-in-law, mother-in-law and husband to truly take an outing most in distance in mind. It has been of four years into her marriage and prestigiously was she able to offer solicitude and companionship to her beloved husband that all praised the girl in her profession of "good wife". She had no offspring yet of her own but solitude did not come unhappily because her sister-in-law was much to be content with when the husband was required elsewhere. Still, she was being prompted by the other woman with her station of Mrs. Martin to quickly get an infant that would be able to bounce youthful color to the already flowing bounce of the farm; though Mr. Martin was clear in his advices to his mother that still time was needed to groom a family (though to the mother's disappointment). 

Harriet was the countess of the farm as Elizabeth Martin, beloved sister-in-law, was still unmarried and fostered no interest in any man to detach herself from maidenhood. Though she had inclination to marry her interests were more than meager but not enough to seek a suitable match. Harriet loved the life of the farm and stayed pleasantly there for four years as wife of Robert Martin, the elite and refined Mrs. Martin. It was disdainful that in truth, the elite and refinement was just a façade pulled on the strings by young Mrs. Martin. It was boredom and loss of vigil that allowed her the truth. She loathed the Mrs. Martin within her and only loved what she was by birth – Harriet Smith. She could never be happy being Harriet Martin and the whole weight delivered only poisonous liquids. Harriet Martin preferred not being the wife of Mr. Robert Martin and only wished to be Harriet Smith.

Harriet Smith, illegitimate girl of the tradesman Mr. Sam Winterfield, had gotten blessings most magnified in life. Though illegitimate, she was taking in by the kind-hearted Mrs. Goddard, though illegitimate, society thought her well and though illegitimate the most royal Emma Woodhouse was to be as a friend till now with the whole of Highbury giving their approbation. It was very noxious and nauseating in truth. Was she to do propaganda in the name of the Woodhouses? She knew now that fame is but avarice only meant for the powerful and the stable of the blood-balanced. Though her illegitimacy was never questioned nor ridiculed subtle dedications to it were the mortification for her. She was to be claimed by improvement, in the eyes of others, by the powers of Miss Emma Woodhouse and furthermore had she not joined her hands with the lady of royalty could she not have been noticed as but by rarely a name, with mostly a position as parlor-border.

She knew that maturation took long on her for her opting to keep distant of truths and foibles of man. She was earnest in knowing her parentage, yet, what was there to be reconciled from it? An abandoned child means only abandonment and not reclaimed address of home and the provisions of journey and visit can cure the flawed position. She was to be painfully sealed in the coffin of silence and flounder elsewhere – it was her depression that gave suppression to her more active cleverer wits and so maturation would not see her. However, the contrasts of truth and maturation found it time to visit and make her their permanent home after marriage. It was not only the intercourse of mind and body with husband that made her intuitions sparkle but in nature's midst one becomes a student instantaneously. Never suitable to the wittier thoughts and conversations in her earlier teenage-hood, Harriet found artless topics with Elizabeth though with the reading of books and observations started challenging her words and soon cleverness originated. She was no more naïve Harriet Smith but empowered Harriet Martin – the better Harriet Smith.

With her erroneous naivety dissipated the world was a clearer orb to Harriet and soon she managed a discovery: she was not in love with Robert Martin. The attractions of her teenage-hood became softer at nineteen and fleeing at twenty. This was quite disastrous to Harriet secretly and why would it not vex? She was wed to a man who could no longer promote tender feelings in her heart. With anger she thought she better off wed to the villainous Frank Churchill who hadn't visited with his wife Jane Churchill in a year. She called him villainous as a simple joke of crudeness for his act of secrecy in the past yet in anger could she say it a million times now. Abbey Mill farm was a nice station for life and the sister-in-law a great friend of respect, while the mother-in-law a kind soft respectable lady who she adored but the husband – he was nobody to her in the nature of love and the pressures of marital affections with marital obligations afflicted and made her unbearable to herself.

Was she doomed to the prisons of matrimony? Possibly, if it not had been the "London-affair", as one may jest of it, then Martin may have been gone off to seek another woman for wife and she would be most happy to never think of it with pain. In actuality despite premature affections (as she saw it now) nothing was felt for a Robert Martin she had spent time with and now nothing more could be felt. Though in respect she gained fuel and slight affections as she though him brilliant as in mind and in body, most understandable as a gentleman of class and she loved him earnestly to that limitation. It was superficial love called admiration and though he provided her shelter and love with mutual percentage to her own availability, Harriet found no conquest of true elation in this marital engagement. It was most devious to her.

She tried to converse of it, to all whom she knew, including her husband himself, yet all said that her nervousness of marital perfection was induced by the tenderness of age she possessed: how blatantly, crudely, most preposterously wrong they were! A shame to her intellect of feelings and observations! It was not a mere-minute's thought but the decades of hours and time stitched to two years that gave her the knowledge. She was mortified at how one mistook her simple, plain, unthreatening naivety to dull, coarse, foolish ignorance. This was not to be spared by her or anyone in her position. Though her birth was not considered of a suitable rank her mind did not offend intelligence! It was then her duty to see to it she strategize any means of escape. Freedom became her mortal and immortal desirable project and she was not to be shown otherwise. Each passing day introduced newer, fresher, vessels of conflict – not imaginable delusions or adamancy to attention yet truthfully stern adversaries to her marital position. Her heart could not ease with Robert Martin and though he meant well in sitting in his offices of love and serenading almost daily in subtle ways she found it to be a pestilent mosquito to the food called her heart. Soon afterwards he may mumble apologizes as her distresses woke audibly in face and manner. This hazardous disposition was intimacy between husband and wife, chiefly with the wife, for Robert Martin saw only fatigue to chores as reason whilst the sister-in-law and mother-in-law saw only happiness and order. The madness of ignorance made Harriet feel imprisoned and asphyxiated!

' Pray, do you not believe sister that Mrs. Knightley expects us to visit today?' Elizabeth Martin looked nonchalantly at her sister-in-law who was stationed with the finished meal of scrambled eggs and loaf of bread that deserves to be set at the table.

' You may call her Emma.' Sounded the distracted voice of Harriet, who settled the table as Elizabeth aided, ' We have shared a healthy intimacy for four years and it is also her insistence. Truthfully,' the smile on Harriet grew beautifully, ' Your need for _exercise_ recommends you to the place.'

' Yes dear sister!' confessed Elizabeth Martin, ' I had a craving for cake and had not Emma requested to stop for cake at any leisure moment. It will be a curse to waste the bounties of a splendid weather by not going!'

' Alright Elizabeth we may go in the afternoon.' Harriet set the last plate delicately, for it was her husband's and though the view of tenderness it parodied it was actually distress of her own feelings, ' Now you must let breakfast work for your cravings.'

' I'll not be satisfied until I have had the Woodhouses cake!' adamantly Elizabeth swore it seems and started with breakfast.

Harriet smiled for she too visited her Miss Woodhouse rarely now. With each to their settled lives and familial extensions the chance of visits lessened though friendships never did hazard. Not a single word uttered of the topic as Robert arrived with his mother. He kissed the forehead of sweet Harriet and settled himself next to her while the mother berated the daughter for showing the face of an ordeal in sunny weather. Harriet relaxed but anxiety reproduced itself in the warmth of a soft forehead.

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' I am so glad to see you Emma. This cake is delicious so please forgive Elizabeth. She must maintain silence and distance to savor it.' Harriet seated in the lounge of the former Miss Woodhouse explained her sister-in-law's delving into the cake. The craving truly satisfied Elizabeth as slices were devoured with care to manners and presentation.

' No need for explanation, Hartfield cake ensues such temptations,' Emma Knightley proudly announced, ' It is but a expectation. Though the surprise of you and your sister coming was never expected; I am to see it as a gift to Hartfield!'

This was Emma Knightley at twenty-five, still the vivacious one and though in the same case of Harriet and with a husband similar-minded to the thing, she is without child till now. Most Highbury folk find it too amusing and strange yet when the former Emma Woodhouse still lodged with her father and the husband settled in Hartfield – the differences were never to be commented on. These were private decisions of husband and wife and done with approbation. George Knightley found the post of father too strong for him to endure very recently into marriage and Emma being only of twenty-one then and who was at first determined to set matrimony off could not see it so luxuriously. Both were not so keen in the want of children immediately though through Emma's openness to her father and his openness to Miss Bates it was decided that soon children will be blessed to them for the talk was there and so pregnancy may proceed shortly.

' Gift Indeed.' Stated George as he sat with them, happy to see Harriet and Elizabeth, ' How does your husband do Mrs. Martin?'

Harriet winced invisibly, the post was something she wished to censure, truthfully, Mr. Knightley, her _former_ affection, saying it, seemed more painful, ' My husband does well and sends his regards through me.' Her smile covered the winces.

' Sure send mine to him.' Knightley smiled and too indulged on cake.

' Oh, Mr. Knightley!' cried his wife, ' Do you propose Harriet be your messenger!' the tease made the brow of the husband be raised.

' And why not my dear Emma?' Knightley cornered a bit too closely to his wife, ' I believe **significant others** show their significance by letting their partners know of friends and foes. That is very necessary.'

' True Indeed!' cried the now vacant Elizabeth Martin though cake gyrated through her desires. Hartfield cake was bewitching.

Harriet found it bewitching also – not the cake – but the two of their hosts. To see Mr. Knightley be brave for public affections made her envy shout. It was a lie to say that she had no affections for her George Knightley. Friendly he was, esteemed without question, loving was so destined in – her jealousy pricked that Emma Woodhouse should never had been Emma Knightley! It was her demand to God and his musicians, the fates, to play the libretto where Emma Woodhouse stays Emma Woodhouse and her character be Harriet Knightley – she didn't wish only to be plain messenger but the thunderstruck imagination of being the messenger to his heart and love. This was deadly jealousy indeed. Though to Harriet it was new and awkward so she dissuaded its growth by planting artificial smiles and suffered with cake and conversation:

Inwardly the thought did not cease. It could not stop maturing.

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**Author's Note:** Readers, please tell me what you think even if you think it's ridiculous!

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